Ivy Bridge Ultrabooks for Windows 7 and 8

Intel didn’t tell us the right date, but the company is now indicating that it plans to support both Windows 7 and 8 with its soon to come Ultrabook line.

All currently available Ultrabooks are based on the Huron River platform and 17W TDP dual-core 32nm Sandy Bridge processors and in the near future, as of June, they will start to get replaced by Chief River and 17W TDP dual-core Ivy Bridge parts in 22nm.

This will include Core i5 and Core i7 3000 series processors that will start with support for Windows 7 and as of Q4 2012, if some of the vendors are ready they should get support for upcoming Windows 8 as well.Intel also plans to come up with Intel AppUP 3.6 in Q2 2012 and to follow up with 3.7 version in Q3 2012 that will already be Windows 8 ready.

When it comes to Intel, the outfit seems to be ready for Windows 8 as of Q3 2012, which is the time when we expect RTM, release to manufacture version of Windows 8 to ship to a big OEMs. Windows 8 based ultrabooks with touchscreens sounds like a nice idea, especially if Intel lets vendors use affordable Celeron processors and get these machines well below the $799 mark.